The No Hesitating Campaign

I'm soon to embark in a life changing experience. The dice have been cast, the cards are on the table and I've finally reached a decision: I'm going to Newcastle University to join the MA in Creative Writing, class of 2009. This is the happy consequence of a long, tough process called The No Hesitating Campaign.

Reaching a Milestone:

Personally and professionally I reached a turning point about half a year ago: the options were settling down in a specific place and in a certain career path, returning home to saw a new path or moving on to a new horizon. The crisis of the 1/4 of a century. This accompanied by a wake up call in the form of an emergency surgery was the shock I needed to stop drifting along with the current and start swimming to my destination.

The feeling of slight anxiety and profound doubt about that this uncertainty caused me only needed a firm decision to disappear. I find that there's nothing more inductive to a peaceful state of mind than deciding something major and following it through step by step. Being one commonly yet wrongly thought of as decisive, I had a hard time figuring out what was it that I wanted. But once I did, there was no possibility of turning back.

The No Hesitating Campaign:

Many phases were part of this, here are some:

• First: After deciding what I wanted to pursue and were (meaning country) the following step was intensive research. Knowing my way around the net, this wasn't particularly difficult but long indeed. Unaccountable hours were spent searching, selecting and in note making.

• 7 is a magic number: Once I went through the options, I decided I would apply on 7 universities. Applying on more seemed to be too much to handle; and applying on less made me nervous :S

• Application Package Party: After going through toooooons of applications guides, I decided to make a list of it all and prepare a major package that I could present to the different universities, making the necessary modifications to fit the different programs and requirements. Once you have the package is relatively easy, but making it is a bit more complicated.

• The wait: This could be the most nerve wrecking part, except I decided to forget about it for a month or so. Universities in my experience do answer around the time they say they will, so there's no major reason to worry about. This is the time to trust you've chosen the right programs to apply to and that they will like your application. True, I did check my email frequently enough, but I lost the worrying on the way; it would have eaten me up!!!

• The offers and the rejections: I'm happy to say I got as many offers as I did rejections. I think I was lucky about it. Rejection is not something easy to deal with, but getting a good percentage of each allowed me to make peace with the situation and choose wisely. I ended up in the program I liked best from the beginning.
  
  Saying no to a University that has accepted you is not an easy thing; I find it a sad moment. But they know as well as you do that you need to be in the best place for you, and unfortunately that can't be everywhere!

• Accepting the offer and setting the course: About 2 weeks ago I accepted the offer for Newcastle and now I'm entering the whole preparation to leave phase. It's a bit stressful, for all the anticipation building up, but well, gotta enjoy every step of the ride!!!

Pound for your thoughts

After going through this, I have come to admire the tenacity required to pull it through. So, from here to all of those who apply to Graduate Studies: I salute you.

Now that the GPS is put in place and the university is guiding the process, I'm dutifully making all the preparations. A lot of people have supported me through this process and are curious to know what’s gonna happen. This blog is a window to talk about this phase and to do some creative writing exercises.